Filming Recap: Day Two, 01.31.09

In this new feature we catch up with the filming of this latest film long after the fact.

Second day of filming started with the scene where Terry and Hannah dig up the time capsule.

The scene itself was pretty short on the page, but shooting outside is always an adventure. First of all, we were right next to a highway, and sometimes kids would ride past on their bikes, and stop to watch us filming. We kept having to tell them, "it's okay if you watch, but if you sit right there, you're right in the middle of the shot, so if you could move a little..."

Also, on the other end of the field the university was doing some construction of some sort, so they had a big truck over there, and every time we rolled we'd hear the beeping of the truck backing up. It would go for about 3 minutes, then stop for about 30 seconds, then go again. It was like the truck was parallel parking, and just couldn't get into the space. At least, that was our theory.

After we finished the scene, we headed back to Hannah's apartment set and shot the rest of the scenes in that location. About 5 scenes in there.

Fortunatly, those five scenes take place in one night, so the costumes didn't change, but we did have to change the lighting every time, and the scenes, while each one was really short, maybe a page or two at max, did have to have full coverage, so the scenes did take a bit of time to get done. We ended up filming a while, a bit longer than we planned to, but we got some great footage. The cast was on the ball, and the crew was starting to get into a cool rhythm.

Crew members I didn't name in the last pics:

Jared and Michael - crew

Karli - production designer

This was our longest weekend, and with Day 2 over, we hit the hay to get sleep, knowing Day 3 was only hours away...

Filming Recap: Day One, 01.30.09

In this new feature we catch up with the filming of the latest film long after the fact. The reason we waited this long was not out of sneaky secrecy... just busy and lazy.

First day of filming, we did one scene, between Terry and Hannah in her apartment.

Since we were only doing one scene, the idea was it would go a little faster. However, this is the first day, which means it takes the longest. We had a bunch of people on the set who'd never been on a set before, and we had a DP none of us had worked with before, so the time issues were sort of expected.

Josh, the DP, was excellent. The cast was totally cool, and it was excellent to start with a quiet, mostly light scene between Richie (Terry) and Nicole (Hannah), since most of the stuff we shot in the film would primary be more serious scenes between them.

Overall, not a whole lot to say about this day. We did go about two hours longer than planned, blew out one bulb, and had a few mic issues, but all in all it was a decent first day.

After filming, we let the actors go, and Andrew and Lauren thanked the crew for their professionalism, and prepped them on the schedule for the next morning.

The crew you see in the slideshow:

Andrew - director

Lauren - producer

Josh - DP

Travis - sound

Trevor - key grip

Alison, Kelly, Alex and Tadashi - grips

Mike - script supervisor

Jalessa - apprentice script supervisor

Ben - behind the scenes documentarian

Jeffrey - production photographer

We had a couple of other crew members on the film who weren't there on the first day, so I'll point them out in the upcoming slideshows.

Day 2, coming soon...

We've been filming all this time...

Unfortunatly, I haven't had a lot of chances to get back here and tell you guys all about it. The other reason I've waited is, simply, I don't have any pictures. As soon as the shoot is over, I'm gonna get my hands on all the pictures we've taken on the set, and start posting blogs for each day of filming.

Again unfortunatly, that may not start until another couple weeks from now, but hopefully you'll endure the wait with me.

Courage!

From Pre-Production to Plain Old Production

We start filming tomorrow.

That snuck up a little bit...

Fortunatly, we're all totally on top of this movie, and the shooting schedule itself is not at all arduous. We're filming pretty much every weekend in February, but each day is not so bad, and the days don't really stack up against us at all.

Now, that's not to say that this month has been without it's hitches. There have been a proposterous ponderance of producer politics, but rather than go into all of it (which I wasn't around for anyway), just a couple of quick updates:

- Andrew, our Senior producer, is no longer our Senior producer, but the director of the project.

- I, obviously, am no longer the director, but the Script Supervisor (in addition to being the writer)

Now, you may ask: But WHY?

Answer: Producer politics.

Now, there were other reasons, too. Since I'm no longer the director, I have a lot more time to focus on writing projects for next year, which is essensial given the way the class has been going this year. Also, Andrew hasn't directed anything over the past 3 years, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with my film.

I was telling my friend all of this, and he felt bad that I was "demoted" from the directing slot. But the truth is, I'd be a lot more upset about it if Andrew didn't get the movie just as much as me. He understands the movie, and actually sees the same movie I do (often down to the shot), and it's all about getting the movie made. I would shave my head to get this movie made.

(I'd probably start at the bottom, though, and work my way from the chin up. I'm not crazy.)

Welcome to 2009

So, it's been a couple months since I posted anything new. But I have been pretty darn busy...

So, let's talk about "Reminisce." When last I checked in, it was mid-November 2008. Since then, the script's been rewritten seven ways from Sunday, but it seems like we have a final draft in play.

We start shooting at the end of January. Once that happens, I'm gonna start posting pictures from the production, maybe even a video or two.

In the meantime, we're gonna start working on a bunch of pre-production elements, including storyboards, so I'll try to post some of those before filming.

Until then, you can catch a few tidbits of script here.

"The Movie Is Written 3 Times" (if you're lucky)

The saying goes "the movie is written three times: once in the screenplay, once on the set, and once in the editing room."

The reason I bring up this expression is that 'Reminisce' has entered the rewriting process.

The Casting Process

 Just finished a month-long casting process.

Actually, that makes it sound like I've been casting non-stop for the whole month. Not so.

At the beginning of the month, we had 2 Saturdays of auditions. We sorted through the readings, filtered them down a little, and had a sort of callback/screen test event Saturday.

There are several characters in the film, but we focused mostly on six:

(Blue indicates they appear in the present-day storyline. Green means they appear in the flashbacks.)

Terry/Young Terry (protagonist)

Hannah/Young Hannah (ingénue [kind of])

Patrick (best friend)

James (roommate)

Ashley (drunk slut [kind of])

Liza (ex-girlfriend)

There are also several other incidental characters, but these were the six we focused on.

The First Round: AUDITIONS

One of the things that surprised me the most was how many guys we didn't get. The ratio usually slants away from the Y chromosone anyway, but it was more so than in previous years. We also got a lot fewer people reading this year than before (part of it was the amount of advertising we did, and the number of films we were producing this year). That said, all of the people we did get for each role, we really liked.

We had quite a few people for Hannah, as expected, but what really surprised me was how many girls came in to read for Ashley. I like to think I managed to keep her from coming off as two-dimensional, but that part doesn't really come across in the sides we posted online, so in the scene all the auditioners read, she's kind of a cliche character. There's two explanations as I see it; One, the level of quality of the other sides led them to infer that her scenes were just as dynamic as the others they were reading. Or, two, everybody just wants to play drunk. In any case, everyone who came in really rocked it, and I was surprised how many people could play drunk well. (It's one of my pet peeves, but I left auditions un-peeved, so kudos.)

Overall, we had some good guys and gals, and we felt comfortable narrowing it down a bit.

Interlude: THE NEXT STEP

We had some good options for our cast, but couldn't narrow it down, and were trying to decide how to proceed. One of the things that changed in between the auditions was that a mandate had come down that we should try casting the same actors as both young and adult versions of the characters. Since there's only two of them, and they're only ten years apart, it made the most sense.

But, since we hadn't been thinking about that, there were some people wanted to see again, not to mention wanting to nail down chemestry. So, when Andrew (Senior Producer) suggested we try doing a screen test, we all agreed to give it a shot. We narrowed the list to people we felt like bringing back, and set it up.

The Second Round: THE SCREEN TEST

Apart from some... technical difficulties (which I have no intention of going into, at least on THIS blog...), the screen test went pretty well. We used the on-campus TV studio, set up a little set, and used a 3-camera setup, then edited in real-time in the booth. We tried out different combinations of Hannah-Terry pairings, aged everyone up and then down, and had them read with our Patrick. We also brought in a couple Lizas and Ashleys, just so we could narrow it down some more (which, again, was difficult, as both roles were read really well by a number of fine actresses).

It also really gave me a chance to see how easy it would be to direct each actor in a scene, how well they take changes, how they amuse themselves while waiting for a shot, and, weirdly, I ended up making some discoveries about the scenes and the characters as I would explain them (which threw me off. I thought I knew it all, having, you know, created that whole world). It was a lot of fun.

One kind of funny aspect was the weather. Since we're located in Thousand Oaks, it's a bit of a drive to get to the campus, and on Saturday we were experiencing some freaky rain. It would be dry for hours, then spontaniously open up and start pouring. Then it would stop. One of our actors made it all the way down the freeway and to Olsen street before the rain caught up with him, which was particularly fortunate given the fact that he was on a motorcycle.

All right, that about somes it up, I suppose. This ended up being a long one... If I think of any more funny anticdotes from Saturday, I'll add them, otherwise we're gonna go ahead and head into pre-production. We're going into rewrites, so I'll probably post something about that shortly.

And, once again, if you wanna read the logline, synopsis, character bios or scenes from the film, this is the place.